Cirrhosis and frailty assessment in elderly patients

Abstract The frailty represents a key determinant of elderly clinical assessment, especially because it allows the identification of risk factors potentially modifiable by clinical and therapeutic interventions. The frailty assessment in elderly patients usually is made by using of Fried criteria. However, to assess the frailty in cirrhotic patients, multiple but different tools are used by researchers. Thus, we aimed to compare frailty prevalence in elderly patients with well-compensated liver cirrhosis and without cirrhosis, according to Fried criteria. Among 205 elderly patients screened, a total of 148 patients were enrolled. The patients were divided into 2 groups according to the presence/absence of well-compensated liver cirrhosis. After clinical examination with conventional scores of cirrhosis, all patients underwent anthropometric measurements, nutritional, biochemical, comorbidity, and cognitive performances. Frailty assessment was evaluated according to Fried frailty criteria. Unexpectedly, according to the Fried criteria, non-cirrhotic patients were frailer (14.2%) than well-compensated liver cirrhotic patients (7.5%). The most represented Fried criterion was the unintentional weight loss in non-cirrhotic patients (10.1%) compared to well-compensated liver cirrhotic patients (1.4%). Moreover, cumulative illness rating scale -G severity score was significantly and positively associated with frailty status (r = 0.234, P < .004). In a multivariate linear regression model, only female gender, body mass index and mini nutritional assessment resulted associated with frailty status, independently of other confounding variables. Despite the fact that elderly cirrhotic patients are considered to be frailer than the non-cirrhotic elderly patient, relying solely on “mere visual appearance,” our data show that paradoxically non-cirrhotic elderly patients are frailer than elderly well-compensated liver cirrhotic patients. Thus, clinical implication of this finding is that frailty assessment performed in the well-compensated liver cirrhotic patient can identify those cirrhotic patients who may benefit from tailored interventions similarly to non-cirrhotic elderly patients.